Identity Protection and Monitoring

+ What Is Identity Protection and Monitoring?

There are two basic elements to identity and credit protection. While the terms are often used interchangeably, and generally go together, it’s important to recognize the distinction before making a decision about how to best protect yourself from credit identity theft. The first element is credit monitoring. This generally includes a credit score tracker and the ability to quickly analyze changes or unexpected activity to your full credit report with any or all of the three major credit reporting bureaus. The best credit monitoring agencies will alert you when a new loan is taken out in your name or a new credit card opened. They’ll inform you each time a creditor reports that you’re past due or changes your credit limit. If a company checks your credit history, you’ll be informed. If your name appears in court records related to financial judgments, possible bankruptcy, or anything else, they’ll catch it and make sure you know. If questionable behavior occurs and you’re unable to entirely prevent it, some credit monitoring services will help you contact the appropriate creditors, services, or authorities and guide you on restoring your credit. The second element is identity monitoring. Your better id protection companies alert you any time your name, Social Security number, driver’s license number, or other personal forms of identity are used to apply for a loan (even those loans which don’t normally count as “credit,” like payday loans), appear in court records of any sort, show up on change of address requests, add on utilities or other services, or show up on social media or various online sources known to be used by identity theft professionals The best services which protect identity online usually offer some form of identity restoration as well. If your information is misused, they’ll help you with the steps necessary to restore your proper information and alert the appropriate authorities.

+ Do I Really Need Identity Protection and Monitoring?

Many people assume that if they’re not particularly wealthy and don’t have that many credit cards or other accounts, they’re probable safe from identity or credit theft. That’s not actually true. While bad guys certainly appreciate it if you have easy credit available on your stolen cards or a decent credit rating so it’s easier for them to get their fraudulent accounts approved, it’s not essential. Keep in mind they’re not particularly broken up by high interest rates or other penalties associated with having limited or poor credit. They’re not going to actually pay for any of it, after all. You may wonder if a professional service really does much which you couldn’t do yourself. Before signing up for any sort of identity protection and monitoring, always be clear on what the contract does and doesn’t guarantee. They’re not all the same. At Goalry, we’d rather be honest upfront about a few realities of all ID protection companies and credit monitoring services. The first thing many people don’t realize is that unlike putting armed guards around our property or locking our car in a steel garage, it’s virtually impossible to completely prevent misuse of our personal information. We live in complex, interconnected times. Our information is shared and stored so many different places that those who are determined to get to it have a good chance of eventually succeeding. What we can do, however, is keep some information secure, and to make it much more difficult for the bad guys to get the rest conveniently or easily. Most identity thieves aren’t after us specifically – if our information isn’t easily available, they’ll often move on to the next target. It’s the credit identity equivalents of parking in a closed garage, parking in the street, or leaving the top down and the keys in the ignition. The other thing we can do is catch inappropriate uses of our information in a timely manner in order to minimize the damage and protect ourselves from the consequences. It makes a big difference if you catch an unexpected withdrawal five minutes after it happens instead of five days or five weeks. You wouldn’t have much use for a home alarm system that at the end of the month provided a printout of all the times your windows were jimmied or your smoke detectors noticed something burning.

+ What’s Different About Professional Identity Protection and Monitoring?

If you spend any time at all researching the offers of ID monitoring and credit monitoring agencies, you’ll soon notice that a lot of what they offer are things you could conceivably do yourself. Searching court records for your name, analyzing bank and credit card statements for suspicious charges, monitoring your credit reports with the three major credit bureaus, checking to see if there have been any change of address requests filed with the postal service, keeping up with dozens of other database and internet sources – 80% or more of what the best identity theft services offer are things you could do yourself with a laptop and good internet connection. Of course, you’d need to devote several hours a day to the process, every day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, without forgetting anything or getting distracted by other interests or obligations. Then you’d only need professional help for the other 20%. The ability to protect identity online is a combination of innovation and dedication. Professional identity protection and monitoring, for example, may include expert insights regarding various dark web developments and special connections to various databases. These often involve real people and changing circumstances. We probably couldn’t do these parts at home no matter how many hours a day we spent. But they also help to secure your identity by applying specialized technology to do what computers do best – constant, repetitive tasks, day and night, seven days a week, year-round. You can search court records for your name to see if anything unexpected appears. You probably can’t check it at least once an hour, every day, for the rest of your life. Finally, identity protection and monitoring services often offer some form of credit and identity theft insurance as a major element of their identity theft solutions. Like car insurance, this is set up so that you pay a monthly premium in exchange for financial compensation if specific, pre-defined problems occur. Also like car insurance or any other from of insurance, whether or not this is a good idea is all about the specifics. Some offer very reasonable rates and compensation based on their belief they can prevent most problems to begin with. Others essentially charge you to act as a savings account so that if anything bad ever happens related to identity or credit fraud, they’ll reimburse you part of what you’ve already paid them.
Different services and different levels within those services can be called all sorts of different things. Before you sign up for “enhanced identity theft protection” or pay more for “family identity protection plans,” make sure you know exactly what the program does and doesn’t cover, and how it’s different from other versions. While there are several reputable identity theft services out there, you’ll sometimes discover you’re being charged a premium for peripheral services like notifying you when someone on the “sexual offenders registry” moves into a nearby neighborhood or that many of the protections offered are already a standard part of most credit card or banking agreements. As always, pay attention to the details.